Austria to introduce online investigation for PCs

Austria's government reached agreement on introducing controversial legislation allowing online investigation of PCs, Social Democrat Justice Minister Maria Berger said on Austrian state radio on Wednesday.

The country's ruling coalition of Social Democrats and the conservative People's Party agreed on a draft set out to prevent abuse of the measure.

On Wednesday, the cabinet plans to deliberate new legislation that is to come into force in autumn 2008.

The planned legislation allows online investigation only with a court order for investigation of crimes that carry a court sentence of at least 10 years. This also includes instances of terrorism.

Furthermore, there must be an urgent suspicion of a crime being committed in order for the measure to be implemented, Berger said. She believed that using so-called "Trojans" for snooping on private PCs would not happen more often then "once or twice a year," the minister said.

This would be equal to the frequency of implementing of the so- called "big eavesdropping measure," that allows Austrian authorities to bug apartments of suspects and listen in on their telephone conversations. dpa im wjh